Amid news that Jorge Posada is planning to retire I’ve written a couple times recently that he’s underrated, in part because catchers in general tend to be undervalued and in part because Posada specifically has been in the shadow of various other Yankees stars.
Some readers scoffed at the notion of Posada being underrated, but MLB.com Astros beat reporter Brian McTaggart just provided an example of what I’m talking about:
If Jorge Posada is HOF material, then Ken Singleton gets in.
— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) January 23, 2012
And then, in response to McTaggart’s tweet, Atlanta Journal Constitution Braves beat reporter David O’Brien replied:
If Posada gets in, Fred McGriff should demand investigation. RT @brianmctaggart: If Jorge Posada is HOF material, then Ken Singleton gets in
— David O’Brien (@ajcbraves) January 23, 2012
(O’Brien went on to say about Posada: “If not a Yankee he’s not even mentioned as HOF possibility.”)
I tend to think Posada is a borderline Hall of Famer, but the notion that he’s on par with Ken Singleton and clearly behind Fred McGriff is exactly what I was talking about in terms of his being underrated.
Among all the catchers in baseball history Posada is 12th in Wins Above Replacement. McGriff is 19th among first basemen and Singleton is 102nd among outfielders. WAR isn’t the final word on anything and there’s also certainly room to quibble with those numbers one way or another, but you get the idea.
